Sometimes, you just need the sort of villain who can get beat up by El Diablo, the Olympian or a random member of the Blood Pack. This is fine and good; even D-listers need their little victories. And for those little victories, you know where to go.

The Cadre got their start fighting D-list superheroes by fighting the Justice League. “But wait,” you say, “the Justice League aren’t D-list!” Ah, but this was the Detroit Justice League, featuring Vibe, Gypsy, Vixen (long before Brad Meltzer decided she was very very important) and Steel (not the black guy with the hammer, but instead the cyborg who doesn’t look like a cyborg). Sure, they also had the Martian Manhunter and Zatanna around, but let’s be honest: loser is as loser does. This is the Justice League that Aquaman organized and then promptly quit. That should tell you something right there.

And who are the stalwarts of the Cadre? Well!

Overmaster. An immortal alien, and the leader of the Cadre, responsible for creating all the other members. He was eventually killed by the second Amazing Man. By accident. This should tell you something about the Cadre right off the bat. (Admittedly, Overmaster did manage to kill Ice, but it’s not like that took.)

Nightfall. A college student who, when asked by the Overmaster if she wanted to become a supervillain, basically said “what the hell.” (Maybe she had a really vicious sociology exam the next day, and she totally hadn’t studied for it, because she was playing beer pong all night with the Kappa Kappa boys.) Nightfall’s power is to create a field of pure darkness which extinguishes all light. This was cool when Phantom Lady and Dr. Mid-Nite and Shadow Lass all did it, except that all of those superheroes can, you know, fight in the dark. Nightfall can not quite do this so much. Also, for some reason, she can fly. Why she can fly and most of the rest of the Cadre cannot is something that has never really been explained too much. Maybe the rest of them never thought to ask, and after the fact were too embarrassed.

Black Mass. A big fat guy with gravity powers. Black Mass is most notable for being shot through the head in The Joker: Last Laugh, and then somehow surviving both that and the subsequent black hole he created by accident. Black Mass is actually kind of badass accidentally. I mean, he got shot in the head, was rendered brain-dead, and somehow got better. That’s goddamned freaky, people.

Shatterfist. His gimmick is that if you squint he looks kind of like an evil luchador. Also he has fists that can, well, shatter things. Shatterfist got killed by Ice when she was taken over by Overmaster and went all crazy. After this, somebody else decided to become Shatterfist, despite the fact that there was no Overmaster around to give him shattering-fist powers. Presumably, given the remarkably generic nature of Shatterfist’s powers and costume (why does he have horns? Was the mask on sale?), he ordered them over the phone. “Hi, I’m an expert-level martial artist but I just don’t feel that’s enough to compete in today’s market. What do you have in the way of powers that could augment my martial arts abilities?… no, I don’t want to turn into a bear, thank you… no, not an eagle either… no, not a panther – look, could we skip past the turning into things powers and get to the fighting powers, please? I get that they’re thematic, but this phone call is long distance.”

Fastball. A former baseball player (of course!) who was given a robotic exoskeleton with which he could throw exploding balls. No, seriously. This is what he does, people. Also, he chews tobaccy. No reason, he just likes it. I am desperately trying to come up with something to say about this guy and I’m failing, because he’s so boring. Maybe there are robotic pole-vaulter exoskeletons as well? Robotic decathlete exoskeletons? “Fear… the Hurdler!” No, never mind, that’s boring too.

Shrike. You know Swift from the Authority? Like that. Except less interesting. She died in an issue of Suicide Squad, which – well, come on, you had to expect that at least one of these guys would die in an issue of Suicide Squad. Really, the amazing thing is that so many of them have survived for so long in this day and age, when you think about it.

Crowbar. Crowbar and his sex-pervert costume are notable in many ways. First off, Crowbar is one of the few villains in comics history to lose their trademark villain weapon in a card game. (Yes, this really happened.) Captain Cold, for example, knows not to gamble with his cold-gun, because Captain Cold is not a goddamned idiot, but Crowbar – well, Crowbar is special. He made his costume himself, you know, and he thinks it’s the coolest thing ever, because he made it up to look like a bunch of crowbars wrapped around his private areas! It’s thematic, you see.

You know, lame as they might be, the remaining members of the Cadre serve a purpose. Some villains are good for being the focal point of a lengthy story – not these guys. Some villains are good for when you need to have a rookie hero prove themselves – that’s not the Cadre either. The Cadre are the villains you need when you need to have a scene where your hero meets up with the other hero you want to write a teamup story for, but that other hero needs to be busy fighting bad guys to show that he deserves to be in your hero’s comic book on equal ground. The Cadre are the guys that other hero beats up. It is their purpose. And they are very good at getting their asses kicked.

34 users responded in this post

What struck me most about this page when I first saw it a few months ago was the unfortunate juxtaposition of “The OverMASTER” right above “BLACK Mass”. Perhaps not as jarring to someone not raised in the American South, but still, a strange and unsettling pairing.

Plus the name — “Black Mass” for a big fat black guy. How original; why not just go with “Big Black Fatty Fatty” and call it a day? I look forward to the relaunch of the JLA featuring “Fast Honky”, “Nordic Looking Strong Guy”, “Possibly a Lesbian Woman”, and “Bling-Wearing Paleface” instead of Flash, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Green Lantern.

In 100 words or less, please describe a threat J’onn and Zatanna (assuming they aren’t being morons by fiat), working together, cannot solve. Be specific. Bonus points for explaining how any International/Detroit/Europe/Buddies era JL member could possibly help in any way.

I kinda feel sorry for Shrike. She converted to Christianity in prison, only to be killed on Apokolips. The idea of an evangelical former villain running around trying to forcibly convert others might make a decent story.

Then she showed up in one of those generic super-villain scenes, which shows that DC needs to do a new Who’s Who, if only so lazy artists will stop resurrecting characters that are supposed to be dead (See any comics set in Roulette’s gaming house).

Shatterfist looks like more Mightor’s kid brother than a luchador, or I guess really Mightor is some kind of early proto-Luchador. Jeez, these guys suck. 38%? You are soft on suck. But I would read the bejabbers out of Jeff Hebert’s comic. Sounds like he could get Minister Faust to write it for him real easy.

@BSD Says:
“In 100 words or less, please describe a threat J’onn and Zatanna (assuming they aren’t being morons by fiat), working together, cannot solve. Be specific. Bonus points for explaining how any International/Detroit/Europe/Buddies era JL member could possibly help in any way.”

I can do it one word.

Despero.

And amazingly Gypsy FTW.

I was actually a fan of Justice League Detroit. As a big JLA fan and years of space villians of the month it was a nice change of pace. And remember without the JLD we wouldn’t have been as open to JLI (Giffen, McGuire and DeMattias).

Now see, when I saw Overmaster and the first thing I thought of was those cartoons that one guy in Norway (or was it the Netherlands) did of Muhammad.

Yes Black Mass has a racially awkward name, but I don’t see anything overtly racist about the juxtaposition between Overmaster and Black Mass. I mean Overmaster is what? 30? 40 feet tall? What are they gonna do, put Black Mass behind him? Its not like he has the guy on a leash or anything.

Save that kind of stuff for Crowbar (anyone else reminded of the gay gardener from Dave Shappell’s Gay America sketch?)

Nothing will be more racially awkward than the name Dark Beast. I mean, come on.

Also, I’m trying to think of a story where a bunch of D-list villains got together and really caused havoc, but I can’t think of any. It almost happened in Identity Crisis with Boomerang. But I’ve always thought that would be a good story. A D-list villain(s) decide they are tired of being a laughingstock and set out to really destroy their chosen enemies’ life.

Pre-BND, I think The Shocker would have made a good candidate.

Ugh. I just wrote this whole diatribe and then remembered Kevin Smith’s run on Daredevil.

You know you’re not the swiftest mountainous alien being when you got to learn of your parasite’s plots from the guys against whom your parasite is plotting. And you also know you’re not the swiftest alien parasite when your host can just remove you with some tweezers or something.

@Jason: Just off the top of my head, it’d give him a way to escape from restraints while en route to prison. He makes sure he’s 9 feet tall and fat when they cuff him, then he shrinks down so the cuffs or manacles or whatever fall off, then he bulks up again, kicks ass, and escapes.

While I was writing that it occurred to me that it’s sort of similar to something Songbird once did in the early days of Thunderbolts. Oh well, all the good ideas have been done already anyway, might as well recycle ’em.

Is Shatterfist supposed to be an Oni-type guy? If the mask had those sideways teeth I would know. He looks like if a depowered version of Sunfire and John Proudstar combined had a really angry Daredevil type kid sidekick. Also, is Shrike some kind of cat-alien thing? Because shrikes are actually badass Vlad the Impaler birds, complete with the cannibalism (well, almost, but not really). The Overmaster design reminds me of a generic “Evil Wizard Oracle Vizier Magic Mirror” head pasted on Cracker Galactus and Fastball is like all the really bad parts of Judge Dredd.

Anyone who can accidentally create black holes that he is immune to needs a better team. If Black Mass really can change size, he’s got the potential to be like an Ant-Man/Blob combo with Star Trek physics. And black holes really make Nightfall redundant because the light would be gone/warped anyway, and the immunity to subsequent gravitational effects of weirdness would make flying effectively useless. It would actually be interesting to use B.M. as a timespace portal, even as a stupid bad guy who would end up fucking with aliens. If you make him emotionally manipulative and obsessive compulsive, you’ve got half of Cloak and Dagger right there. And the survival of the brain injuries could be explained away by a) his blobbiness, b) constant rippling of the spacetime fabric around Black Mass’s… mass, or c) he is a Skrull.

I am perturbed by Crowbar. Is he going to be the black man who’s breaking into cars or something??

Just a couple of comments about Shrike. First, she didn’t die on Apokolips, she died in the African country of Ogaden (Suicide Squad #25). Second, the appearances after that was actually a similar but different character called Starshrike. I think she first appeared in the Power Company arc where the Cadre worked for Dr. Polaris.